Project Spotlight: Heart Pine Flooring Restoration in a Brooklyn Brownstone

One of the most rewarding types of projects we work on is matching reclaimed flooring to existing historic floors. This past winter, we supplied reclaimed heart pine flooring for a brownstone renovation in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where the owners wanted to extend their original 1890s heart pine floors into a new kitchen addition.

The Challenge

The brownstone's parlor floor and second story had original heart pine flooring in good condition — tight-grained, amber-colored boards that had been under carpet for decades and were in remarkably good shape once uncovered. The new kitchen extension, however, needed approximately 350 square feet of flooring that would blend seamlessly with the 130-year-old original.

Matching old-growth heart pine is not easy. Modern southern yellow pine looks nothing like the dense, resinous longleaf pine that was harvested in the 19th century. Only reclaimed heart pine can achieve a visual and structural match.

Sourcing the Match

We pulled from our inventory of reclaimed heart pine salvaged from a textile mill in North Carolina. The boards had similar grain density and color to the brownstone's original flooring. We selected boards carefully, looking for pieces that would complement — not perfectly replicate — the existing floor. A perfect match would actually look wrong; the new boards need to be close in species and character but will develop their own patina over time.

Milling and Preparation

The original flooring was 3/4" thick with a 3-1/4" face width and tongue-and-groove profile. We milled our reclaimed boards to match these exact dimensions, then ran test fits with samples from the original floor to confirm the joints aligned properly.

The reclaimed boards were slightly lighter in color than the existing floor — expected, since the originals had 130 years of oxidation. We advised the client that the new boards would darken naturally over the first year or two, and that a unified oil finish across old and new sections would help bridge the initial color difference.

The Result

After installation and finishing with a natural penetrating oil, the transition between old and new flooring is remarkably subtle. You can see the difference if you look for it — the new boards are slightly more uniform and a shade lighter — but within a year, UV exposure and oxidation will close the gap further.

The owners now have a continuous heart pine floor flowing from their 1890s parlor through to their modern kitchen. It's exactly the kind of project that demonstrates why reclaimed wood matters — preserving continuity, honoring history, and avoiding the jarring visual break that new materials would create.

If you're renovating a historic property and need matching reclaimed flooring, bring us a sample. We'll do our best to find a match from our inventory or source it through our network.